Notebook, The

From the moment Noah (Gosling) lays his eyes on Allie (McAdams), he knows he will have to go to great lengths to win her heart. Before long they begin a whirlwind courtship that blossoms into tender intimacy. But they are separated by her family's upper-class status and his common upbringing. Their heart wrenching love story is of particular importance to an older gentleman (Garner), who regularly reads the timeless story to his aging companion (Rowlands). The Notebook is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks A Walk To Remember, Message In A Bottle. (Suzanne Hodges)

Special features include audio commentary by Director Nick Cassavetes, an additional audio commentary track by novelist Nicholas Sparks, an All In The Family Nick Cassavetes featurette (SD 11:39), a featurette on the Nicholas Sparks novel (SD 06:36), a highlight on the South Carolina set locations (SD 11:33), a casting featurette (HD 04:06), Rachel McAdams' screen test (SD 03:37), 12 deleted scenes with audio commentary by Editor Alan Heim (HD 28:33), the theatrical trailer, and up-front promotion. The gift set also includes a keepsake box with an exquisite 46-page photo and scrapbook album that highlights the movie's story line and provides bonus pages for creating your own personalized memories, decorative stickers and photo covers to add your own photos, two themed bookmarks, and a set of 16 note cards and envelopes.

The 1.85:1 1080p VC-1 picture is fabulous and improved in every respect over the previously reviewed anamorphically enhanced DVD. The picture exhibits attractive images that are crisp and nicely detailed in facial expressions and textures. Contrast is well balanced, and shadow delineation is superb. The picture has a very natural, organic quality, especially for the scenes involving the young lovers. Colors are richly saturated and warm, with excellent fleshtones and deep blacks. The picture is generally pristine with minor grain but no noticeable edge enhancement or other artifacts. (Gary Reber)

The DVD credits' self-proclaimed "Audio Optimized For DVD" was a nod to the brilliant DVD mixers New Line regularly employed for their feature releases. This is no exception, as the DTS-HD Master Audio™ soundtrack sounds very natural and fits the story line well. The music score is wonderful and beautifully recorded with a wide and deep soundstage and subtle surround envelopment. Subtle surround and LFE use occurs from start to finish—a trait not often found in films of this genre. Low-level nuances are resolved better than the previous Dolby® Digital encoding. Imaging across the front soundstage occurs often, also occurring on the side and rear walls, but with less frequency. The surround channels are generally presented at a much lower level than the dominant center channel dialogue, or at times, with no signal at all. If you have the ability to isolate the four corner channels from the center channel, the full glory of the wonderfully engrossing atmospheric effects can be heard. Unfortunately, dialogue spatial integration is wanting throughout. Even though, this soundtrack presents a wonderful sonic experience, never deviating from the story line's intent. (Danny Richelieu/Gary Reber)